Studio Artists

Modern day hunter & gatherer… Sticks, stones & bones… are the attraction… But, …Leather-craft is the foundation of the work I create at Angel’s Gate studios. This tactile leather medium often melds with other organic materials, found objects and natural elements- often forming into mixed media sculpture, functional art &

Angela is a local writer and historian who has spent the last seven years studying her hometown of San Pedro, CA. She has shared her discoveries via blog (www.spbxb.wordpress.com), podcast (www.thatssopedro.com), walking tour and through articles she writes for San Pedro Today Magazine (www.sanpedrotoday.com). Angela, a longtime friend and admirer

Annette Ciketic is a native San Pedran. Trained as an artist and teacher under the guidance of internationally famed Corita Kent (Sister Mary Corita), her style includes exploring the extraordinary surprises of everyday living through various media forms. She began her art explorations designing class room bulletin boards as an

Ann Cleaves’s cartoons have appeared in Southern California newspapers since 1986. They have been published in the Random Length News, La Prensa San Diego, Pasadena Star-News, Palisades News (Pacific Palisades), the Washington Post Weekly Edition, and the Palisadian Post. Her cartoons have also appeared in the annual edition of Best

Anna Erneholm’s sculptures are intuitive, expressive and tactile. They are created in a process without words. It is all about seeing, feeling and touching. The sculptures are made in a continuum over the last few years. Although the materials and forms have changed over time, just as the place of

I am a sculptor and installation artist. I make art, I eat art. I breathe art. I try to inspire others to make art……BeArt… My art practice explores common, everyday events, ideas and materials in playful, unexpected ways to give an inviting, positive entry with food for further thought as

Cheryl Groff is a local documentary and portrait photographer here in San Pedro. When’s she not photographing the local underground music scene, she’s taking photos of the youngest of young and is recently starting a series of photographing elderly subjects as well. Some of her subjects are just days old

My work is based in minimalism; I am interested in the reaction of pigments on a surface. With my visceral choice of colors, I apply water-based pigments to various substrates, from illustration board to canvas to wooden panel. Then through the actions of my body as I shake, tilt, and

DENNIS KEELEY PHOTOGRAPHY: 25 YEARS OF MUSIC “In his book,”Photography, A Very Short Introduction,” the author, Steve Edwards complains that photography runs in all directions, permeating diverse aspects of society. He also states that, “Trying to account for photography as a whole is akin to a history, or a museum

Delora Bertsch was born deaf. Her family moved to Milan, Italy, and then moved all over the United States. Delora has had solo exhibits at galleries and museums with Woodbury Art Museum in Utah, Deaf International Art Exhibition in Illinois, Chicago, and the New Orleans Museum of Art. Delora was

Elizabeth Casuga is a contemporary visual artist who has used painting and video as modes of expression to explore her affinity for Science and Art. She uses her background in scientific research as a point of departure for her artistic explorations in “Scientific Abstraction.” “Open-ended” visuals create a simulacrum of

Born in Oakland, CA, Elyse Pignolet is an American with Filipino heritage, who lives and works in Los Angeles. She attended CSU San Francisco, and in 2001 she lived and studied in Madrid and Barcelona. Pignolet received a BFA in Ceramics from Cal State Long Beach in 2007. Her studies

Frank has had one-person shows at galleries in the United States and in a private collection with the Petropavlovsk, Kamchatka Museum in Russia and the Museum of Art in Nagasaki, Japan. His Corporate collectors include MTV Music awards in New York, Club Med Corporation in Los Angeles and Union Bank

Gil Mares My current work features cargo freighters in the Los Angeles Harbor. Using a ‘distilling process’ I concentrate on what is in plain view and attempt to pull out the essence of the subject. While searching for images in the harbor, I was drawn to the worn hulls of

Much of my work is about the act of making, with improvisations and the surprises that arise during the making of the work. I like to view it as an open ended process where one action influences the next, step by step leading into new directions. In my work there

“Decoration” is a deceptively benign word. Ideas spread like germs, broader and faster than the worst germs. And they cannot be healed, because there is nothing physical to remove. But a cultural shift can kill off ideas. Historically, ideas have survived rough times by hiding in decoration. Giving teeth to

Born in Los Angeles CA, Jon Nakamura was raised in an immigrant Japanese American family of six. His mother who ran a Buddhist ministry in Los Angeles, had an enormous influence on his life. After graduating from Fairfax High School, Nakamura worked as a line cook at a popular Italian

Color is my life- I use it at full volume. I work with acrylic or oil paint and often include three-dimensional objects, collage, photographs, and text in my work. My world is populated by imaginary characters and reality bites. The distant past, the volatile present, and our constantly evolving future

Leah Shane Dixon is a digital painter and mixed/multi-media artist. Originally from Long Beach, California, Leah is a graduate of Pratt Institue (Brooklyn, NY) and the Los Angeles County High School for the Arts. Leah’s work has been seen at the Rubin Museum of Art (New York, NY), Beacon Arts

In 2005 I started collecting and photographing flotsam from our local beaches. This work began by building clusters of flotsam and making digital photomontages. As this project evolved a formal image-making strategy developed via toying with these beached objects and placing them within layered compositions. The intention: the renewal of

Lucinda S. Rudolph (LSR) is a painter and mixed media artist that loves the feel of oil paint. Exploration, reflection, and reinvention are thematic elements in her work. Current work includes paintings of Avalon ( 1965-2009) exploring self, memories and dreamscapes. In the spirit of reinvention and lifelong learning, LSR

Lynn Doran, a native Californian, began her life of adventure and creativity in the 1950s, traveling with her parents whose curiosity led them deep into Mexico, pulling a travel-trailer. Leaving college with a degree in Fine Arts, Lynn immediately started her own company, “Natty,” designing and manufacturing women’s specialized ski

“Painting is a manner of palimpsest, a battering of layers towards clarity- ‘object-ness.’ Brush as arbiter of form. My goals are in process. They devolve into a spirit of play and love of work.” Drawing on a history with textiles, Marley’s work is a marginal type of abstraction born of

Nancy Voegeli-Curran’s artistic practice focuses on the duality between chance and intention. Her abstract drawings and paintings explore process and the materiality of paint. Through interweaving, multi-layered structures, she creates micro and macrocosms that resemble a phenomenological event such as a cosmological dust storm with inter-stellar bits or a spatial

Since 1995, Patrick Tierney, 3rd generation Californian has done hundreds of wall mounted and freestanding collage sculptures that address consumer desire through packaging. As an oeuvre, the work utilizes one hundred years or so of product packaging and consumerist ephemera to offer the vantage point of a naïve obsessive collector

Paul Carmichael is an artist whose works are mixed media arts. He graduated from California State University, Dominguez Hills in 1976 with a Bachelor’s Degree in Fine Arts and a Minor in Art History. In 1979, Mr. Carmichael was a founding member of L.A. Artcore and was on the Board

I had the great opportunity of studying overseas with my wife in Italy. We had a teacher who was leading an archeological dig at an Etruscan site. We were able to look through an area littered with pottery shards. The feeling I got by holding, examining and wondering about the

Phoebe Barnum was trained in the traditional studio arts. It is clear that her works are influenced by the Abstract Expressionists. Images at times are enlarged to the point identity of the image is unrecognizable. Interest in a rich surface is evident in the application of these oil pastels. Formal

Rique Guzman, a California native, studied art in New York, at the Art Students League of New York. Has worked with such noted artists as Andres Serrano and Jeff Koons. Currently Rique Guzman is exploring new celestial models in mixed mediums. Contact: Rique Guzman Phone: 562-857-1094 Email: riqueguzman@gmail.com Go to

Former AGCC Studio Artist b. 1986, Torrance, CA Lives and Works in San Pedro, CA Sarah Elise Abramson resides at the intersection of poetic and unsettling, creepy and beautiful, subversive and classically Romantic. Her work is ethereal, demonstrating an inquisitive and appreciative love for nature, eccentric characters, and discarded objects

Scott Anger is an award-winning, independent journalist and documentary filmmaker whose work has spanned every medium over the past 25 years. Most recently, he was the Director of Video at The Los Angeles Times. As a freelance photojournalist, Scott worked on assignment for a number of leading publications. In 1996,

Slobodan Dimitrov is a photographer based in the Long Beach/Los Angeles Harbors. Recently his project, Artists Portraits, was exhibited at Angeles Gate Cultural Center. Currently, his 20 year long project on the Piledrivers, can be seen in the lobby of Local 2375, Wilmington CA. To date he has had over

The following was written by Alex Fraser, and is taken from the press release for Stuart Hamilton’s solo show, “Sticks and Stones” at the Teasmith Gallery, London, England – February, 2010: “His work has always been a meticulously executed expression of his environment, the natural world and his own personal

Wanting to build a better flute, I study patterns in those of other cultures, including basic acoustic principles. Though my work is deeply personal, it is steeped in my studies of archaic wind instruments, giving my work resonance through time. I make both traditional and innovative flute forms in clay,

Resonance of Form and Spirit, Make Space, Let Resonance Happen and Evolve These are the essences of my painting approach. Like sailing, I keep my mind open to the interplay of the elements and the situation, and I surf with the moment. I’m an active member on sailboat racing teams

Photographer Tim Maxeiner, born and raised in Germany, moved to San Pedro a few years ago. In 2013 his photo-book “Home Alone / Auto – Allein zu Haus” (available in German & English) was published by German publishing house Delius Klasing. The book is photographed exclusively in San Pedro. It

Vanessa Madrid is a sculptor and painter based in Los Angeles. Her current work is an investigation into the vulnerabilities of the body and psyche, and states of transition. The essential components of humanness, as evidence of the journey of living beings towards transcendence, are the undercurrents running through her

W.S. Milner is interested in the intersection of art and story. Her artwork is based on medieval and ancient imagery found in manuscripts, sculptures, frescos, and archaeological digs. Milner is drawn to magical reality and myth. She creates handheld diptychs and panels that her audience encounters on an intimate basis.

Yoon Jin Kim (b. 1948 Seoul, Korea) is a Los Angeles based painter. She studied at the University of Hartford in Connecticut (1971-73) before earning her MFA (1979) from Seoul National University. In 1996, she rented a studio at Angels Gate Cultural Center where she could see Santa Catalina Island

The Love of working with clay, Roy’s is known for working with Porcelain as well as other clays in his studio. His pieces are all high fired to cone 10 (about 2280F). He is fascinated by the material from start to finish. It starts being an almost rock formation that’s

Cait Finley (b. 1986) is an American artist who was raised on an Echinacea farm on the high desert plains of western Montana. Finley’s formative years were spent mostly outside, and her practice is greatly informed and inspired by the natural worlds ability to rebuild, post-destruction. Finley also takes cues from the International Style

Former AGCC Studio Artist My name is Edie Zelon-Estrada and I am a native of California, although my parents came all the way from Poland. I currently live with my wonderful husband Eddie, in San Pedro. I attended Cal State Long Beach and got a B.F.A. in Illustration Art and

Former AGCC Studio Artist Eliot Rausch is a filmmaker from Los Angeles, California. His short documentary Last Minutes With Oden won the Documentary Award and Grand Prize at the 2010 Vimeo Festival + Awards. He has since created films for organizations and brands including The Red Cross, Vans, the Veteran

Former AGCC Studio Artist The simple becomes unexpectedly elaborate; the ordinary metamorphose into distinctiveness. The goal is to create work that is inherently distinctive and belies its repetitiveness. I create nuances to challenge the ideas of identity, and I create just enough expressive variations to the seemingly recurring shapes. www.yongsinarts.com

Former AGCC Studio Artist Kelly Flynn is a Long Beach-based writer/director. He was a founding member and later Artistic Director of The Hunger Artists Theatre Company, one of Orange County’s premier storefront theaters. While with The Hunger Artists, Flynn was known for his off-kilter reconsiderations of the classics, including an

Former AGCC Studio Artist I admire the physicist who spends a great amount of time proving mathematically that one would make exactly the same amount of noise unwrapping a candy bar in a darkened theater whether one does it fast or slow. I am attracted to phenomena that are seemingly

Former AGCC Studio Artist The son of missionary parents, Logan L. Fox was born in Japan and raised in the country town of Omika – in Ibaraki Prefecture. At an early age, Logan began to draw pictures for untold hours everyday – so much so that his father hired a

Former AGCC Studio Artist Valerie Bechtol received her degree in fine art at the American Academy of the Arts in Chicago and the Chicago Art Institute. She subsequently studied mask making with the Sanufo and the Baule tribes of the Ivory Coast in Africa. She also lived in Barcelona Spain

Art Education at the Gate

Angels Gate Cultural Center’s goal is to provide exposure to the arts for all community members to experience professional arts instruction by offering moderately priced community classes. The Artist-in-Classrooms program places professional artists in classrooms for skill-based arts education. With the inclusion of the Model Art School component, it has been able to provide diversified arts education for all classrooms at one school. This component continues to build our vision of stabilizing and expanding arts integration in each of the schools for all students.